Thinkpads Forum

Anyone has advices to increase the battery lifespan?

I was told that letting the battery charge or discharge completely was bad.

That setting the battery to start charging when below 65% and to stop charging at 88% was a good setup.

I'm talking about a T61p, BTW.

I have always been told to discharge fully then charge fully. I did that on my last laptop, the T41p, and the battery was still like new after 2 years. I now have a T61p and have been doing the same thing for 6 months and battery life still same as new. I have mine set to fully charge when below 60%.

Phil.

arlab wrote:Anyone has advices to increase the battery lifespan?

I was told that letting the battery charge or discharge completely was bad.

That setting the battery to start charging when below 65% and to stop charging at 88% was a good setup.

I'm talking about a T61p, BTW.

I think your current setup is good.

you can find detailed instructions for optimal battery maintenance on thinkwiki.org (once their server is back again).

Anyway, what is damaging the battery mostly is fast charge and this you cannot influence and Thinkpads generally charge pretty slow (HPs charge twice as fast). Unfortunately there's no option to fully charge the battery in case you need it. Setting the thresholds to 98% (stop charging) and 95% (start charging) should be good enough compromise.

arlab wrote:Anyone has advices to increase the battery lifespan?

I was told that letting the battery charge or discharge completely was bad.

That setting the battery to start charging when below 65% and to stop charging at 88% was a good setup.

I'm talking about a T61p, BTW.

I agree, good setup there. I don't fully charge or discharge mine unless i have to. Deep discharges aren't good for the battery (other than once a month when you recondition it.) I have mine set at about the same as yours so you should be good.

So much left over from older chemistry batteries.

L-Ions do NOT like to be fully discharged. They can be topped off at any time. The charging percentages mention above are fine but discharging fully will greatly decrase a L-Ion battery lifetime.

These are not NiCads!

All I've learned from my experience is that everything people say, in either direction is just a bunch of superstitions. Some say that you should never discharge fully, others say that you should avoid partial discharges.

No one is right, period. From experience, the lifetime of a battery will mostly depend on the quality of the battery (as can be witnessed from the recent Sanyo v. Panasonic discussions), and somewhat on luck of draw.

dr_st wrote:No one is right, period.

Well, I think some of them are right, but I do think that these factors (i.e. how fast you charge a battery, what thresholds to use, how you store an unused battery, etc.) make relatively small differences. IMO, the best way to maximize the lifetime of a battery is to use it only when necessary. Always run the laptop on AC whenever possible. Just several weeks ago, I saw my friend use his MacBook on battery for about two hours even though there was an AC outlet right next to him. That's a bad habit!

Reality will vary with the battery chemistry and how smart the charging system is, so various FAQs on the internet mean nothing if they refer to a different lithium-ion chemistry (there are several) or a different charge controller.

On my last laptop (Compaq, really a DEC design) the battery was always in, but the AC was also almost always on. Some of the battery packs (LiOn, type unknown but they have a full electronics board inside them) lasted 5+ years, typically 6-7 years before suddenly losing capacity or failing overnight.

I expect the TPad battery to last just as long when used the same way--assuming it doesn't catch fire first. (I no longer really trust lithium batteries, from anyone, in anything.)

pianowizard wrote:IMO, the best way to maximize the lifetime of a battery is to use it only when necessary. Always run the laptop on AC whenever possible. Just several weeks ago, I saw my friend use his MacBook on battery for about two hours even though there was an AC outlet right next to him. That's a bad habit!

I'm with you on this one. I always feel slighlty uncomfortable whenever I have to use my laptop on battery and prefer to minimize these occurences. I'm probably stupid, because that's why the battery is there - to be used and not to be inconvenienced about it.

However, when you're lying on your comfortable couch, with a cup of hot cocoa on a cold rainy night, using your little ultralight 12" laptop, surfing the net and relaxing, you might prefer not to have the power cord stuck between your legs or around your neck, even if there is an outlet nearby.

Completely agree. Since the battery is a consumable with a finite number of cycles (as well as a time limited lifespan), I try to minimize the number of cycles I put on it, mainly because I hope to avoid having to spend money on another one. That's one reason I bought my machine with the 9 cell (because it will have a longer usable lifespan).

But when you have no choice, that's what the battery is for. But if there's a choice, I always use AC.